(Apple, 1972)Naughty, naughty! The feminist sentiment is noble, and the sax-dominated arrangement ultra-muscular (that chunka-chunk “We make her paint her face and dance” coda is especially terrific), but when your political/cultural/intellectual ally Angela Davis professes to being uncomfortable about your lyric, well… I guess that makes things complicated. Still, writing as a white male nearly 40 years on, I admire “Woman is the Nigger of the World” for being a ballsy, heart-in-its-right-place piece of commercial suicide that has musical appeal well beyond its chorus’s intended shock value. Hard to knock Lennon for following his political 45s pushing peace (“Give Peace a Chance,” “Happy Xmas”) and social justice (“Power to the People”) with one promoting women’s rights. Yoko rounds things out by adding the uplifting reggae-tinged girl-groupisms of “Sisters, O Sisters” on the B-side, and while I would have preferred her zany boogie-fest “We’re All Water” for single release, this one does fit nicely for obvious thematic reasons.
Both tracks are on Sometime in New York City, and, to be honest, I’m not sure why the consensus on the album is that it’s some major discographical blemish. It’s dated, ragged, and ham-fisted, but with the newspaper-themed packaging, Lennon suggests that he’s knowingly creating ephemeral, of-its-moment rock, rather than the Grand Statements of some of his Imagine-era material. It’s a fun, loose LP that reeks of excitement and conviction (no matter how naïve), with little of the contrived rock-star posturing of later political-minded pop-celebs. Lennon is willing to look silly on this album – and he occasionally does – but he at least doesn’t try to cloak himself and his music in arrogant, singing-from-on-high grandiosity. The mistakes in judgment and songwriting that pockmark this era in Lennon’s career ultimately come off as charmingly well-meaning rather than self-aggrandizing or self-important. Worth shoving some of it into your ears.
2 comments:
I never listened to "Sometime" because, as my bro would say, "I get preached to on Sundays." But I take your point: Lennon as political gadfly was populist in a way that went with the territory back then. Celebs, especially rock celebs, weren't so celebby, and the posturing was kept to a minimum. Also, it seemed to me this album was, like Dylan's "Self-Portrait," almost a homemade work in the sense of not aiming to be commercial or arty or anything but what the singer/songwriter felt like doing -- 'keeping it real' as they say.
The first time i've ever heard anybody say anything good about Sometime in New York City!
Bravo!
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